


On the Edge

by Kangofu_CB



Series: Falling off Cliffs [1]
Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: Gen, Pining, Tumblr Prompt, cocktail friday prompt, soft core angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-19
Updated: 2017-12-19
Packaged: 2019-03-22 09:46:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13761510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kangofu_CB/pseuds/Kangofu_CB
Summary: Duo, Quatre, and Trowa have an annual tradition, a weekend trip they take, to revist old memories and make new ones.





	On the Edge

**Author's Note:**

> Dedicated to the Church of 2x3x4 - I think we number two members now!
> 
> This week's photo prompt found here:
> 
> https://thisweekingundamwing.tumblr.com/post/167953059954/dirtlegends-cliffside-refreshment-cocktail
> 
>  
> 
> No pairings, but pining for a 2x3x4. Angsty as fuck, apparently. Safe for work.

Duo unfolded his chair with a deep sense of satisfaction, and the tiniest touch of melancholy.

 

This was where it had ended. And where it had begun.

 

He gazed out over the canyon, squinting in the final, dying burst of sunlight, the one where the sun shines that much more fiercely for a moment or two, as though fighting against the night before succumbing.

 

Duo understood the feeling.

 

A hand landed on his shoulder and he turned to look at the quiet smile below concerned blue eyes. Duo grinned in answer to the unspoken question.

 

He was fine.

 

This was his favorite time of year. This weekend, every year, was the best weekend of his life.

 

Further over his shoulder, Trowa was assembling a tent with the speed of experience and long practice. Duo and Quatre never bothered to even offer assistance anymore. They only slowed him down. Trowa had been putting up tents for as long as he could remember.

 

Accommodations provided, Trowa threw their duffels and sleeping bags inside to be sorted out later, making his way over to the small set up Duo had arranged, worn folding chairs and tables, beers in a cooler. Perfect view of the canyon. Close enough to the edge for a bit of caution, to push at the boundaries of the reformed citizens they’d painted over their inner terrorists.

 

Or maybe that was only how Duo survived. A thin veil of civility over the reckless force of destruction he’d always been.

 

The three of them lived very different lives. Trowa had gone back to the circus, to get acquainted with the sister he’d never known, the family that had sheltered him through the bitterest parts of the war, who had protected him when he’d been as close to helpless as a lifelong mercenary could be.

 

Quatre, of course, was back at WEI, though he left the day-to-day running of the company to older, competent sisters, women who had carried the company through the war and the slump afterwards. He spent a lot of time in the labs, developing new technology and burying the type that could be weaponized.

 

Duo had wandered, for a while, before being welcomed back into the fold with Howard and the Sweepers. Cleaning up the near-endless wreckage of mobile suit battles on Earth and in Space.

 

But every year they had an agreement. They never even discussed it anymore. They just all arrived here, their parts long-since established. Trowa with the tent. Duo with the tables and chairs and booze. Quatre bringing the sort of essentials Trowa and Duo would never have bothered with if it had just been the two of them - wipes and a first aid kit and food that wasn’t dried jerky, rations, or bottled water.

 

It was a canyon. Long and deep and expansive and carved eons before by wind and water and rain.

 

Significant in that it made them feel insignificant.

 

Important in that they’d ended their personal war here. Had brought their near-indestructible machines of mayhem and murder and destroyed them, blown them into parts so small they could never be reconstructed.

 

Together.

 

The most significant, symbolic moment of Duo’s life.

 

And they’d spent two days there, together, doing piss-poor patch jobs of their wounds and emotions, shared one significant night, and gone their separate ways.

 

Except they’d come back the next year.

 

And then the next.

 

Until it was an annual tradition.

 

And Duo had realized he was in an impossible love triangle the other two didn’t even seem to be aware of.

 

He sighed.

 

Quatre looked at him with a furrowed brow, obviously aware of Duo’s poignant longing and loneliness, but unable to determine the source.

 

Duo just shook his head, pulling out drinks and settling himself into a chair, breathtaking panorama in front of him.

 

Later, they lit a fire, sat around and talked about their lives. Shared stories. Told jokes. Laughed and relaxed and, in Duo’s case, loved.

 

Later than that, they crawled into the tent, Duo complaining that  _surely_  Quatre could have bought them a larger one, as they laughed and muzzily unrolled sleeping bags and shoved duffles out of the way, settling into a hopeless tangle on the ground. Pleasantly intoxicated. Delightfully warm and fuzzy.

 

And much deeper, Duo’s private pain.

 

Quatre’s fingers slipped between his, gripping his hand.

 

In solidarity. Maybe because he could feel the unknown emotion. Maybe just because they were friends. Duo didn’t know. Couldn’t ask.

 

Trowa shifted closer, his shoulder pressed against Duo’s, and Duo wondered that he always ended up between them.

 

Where he’d like to be.

 

They slept.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Many many thanks to ClaraxBarton for beta reading!


End file.
